On the floor stood a cabinet that was not unlike a gloomy wardrobe in its outward aspect. Legrand examined it curiously.
"Too massive," he remarked. "It will cost a fortune for carriage—and where are the columns I heard of?" He stepped inside and sounded the walls. "Humph, of course I see his idea. The fake is a very old one, but it is always effective." Really, he knew nothing about it, but as he was a conjurer, she accepted him as an authority.
"Show me! Is there room for us both?" she said, getting in after him.
And as she got in, the door slammed.
Instantaneously they were in darkness, black as pitch, jammed close together. Their four hands flew all over the door at once, but they could touch no handle. The next moment, some revolving apparatus that had been set in motion, flung them off their feet. Round and round it swirled, striking against their bodies and their faces. They grovelled to escape it, but in that awful darkness their efforts were futile; they could not even see its shape.
"Stop it!" she gasped.
"I don't know how," he panted.
After a few seconds the whir grew fainter, the gyrations stopped automatically. She wiped the blood from her face, and burst into hysterical weeping. The man, cursing horribly, rapped to find the spring that she must have pressed as she entered. It seemed to them both that there could be no spot he did not rap a thousand times, but the door never budged.
His curses ceased; he crouched by her, snorting with fear.
"What shall we do?" she muttered.
He did not answer her.